1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method of marking glass articles, and more particularly to the method of marking a glass component of a lamp during the process of its manufacture to provide a discrete mark on the lamp for identification purposes.
2. Background Art
In the field of manufacturing glass articles, and in particular in the manufacture of electric lamps, there is often a need to provide a marking which will allow tracing the particular item to a source of manufacture, or in the case of a glass lamp which has been manufactured by automatic machinery, to a particular machine employed in its manufacture. In this situation, where it is necessary to mark a glass object such as a glass lamp envelope, it is often difficult to do so due to the size of the object, its particular shape, and the fragile nature of the material used. Also in many instances, the extra step of marking the item would add increased time to production and increased cost to the manufacture of the item. Heretofore, there have been various common methods employed for such product identification, such as the use of ink, stamps, embossing, or colored glasses and labels. While all of these methods of identification have proven to be successful for various applications, they all require that physical items be added to the product or an additional step be provided in the manufacturing process. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a marking to a lead containing glass article, which marking is nearly permanent and is highly variable in application as to size, position, and shape.
A further object of the invention is to provide a marking to lead containing glass articles which may be produced during the manufacturing process of the item without the provision of extra tooling and which will produce no mechanical damage to the item.
A further object of the invention is to provide a process for marking lead containing glass articles which is reliable, inexpensive and may be incorporated into a process normally employed in the manufacture of the glass article without the addition of process steps or machinery.